Auckland’s first underground rail line- due for completion 2024!

The City Rail Link (CRL) FAQ

• The City Rail Link is a game-changer for Auckland. It’s the largest transport infrastructure project ever to be undertaken in New Zealand.

• It allows the rail network to at least double rail capacity. New rail transport growth statistics suggest that by 2035, CRL stations will need to cope with 54,000 passengers an hour at peak travel times, rather than the original estimate of 36,000.

• The CRL is a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link up to 42 metres below the city centre transforming the downtown Britomart Transport Centre into a two-way through-station that better connects the Auckland rail network.

• It includes a redeveloped Mount Eden Station, where the CRL connects with the North Auckland (Western Line) and new underground stations - one mid-town at Wellesley and Victoria Streets provisionally named Aotea and just off Karangahape Road - provisionally named Karangahape with entrances at both Mercury Lane and Beresford Square.

• Completion date - the CRL is due for completion in 2024.

• The CRL will improve travel options and journey times and double the number of Aucklanders within 30 minutes travel of the CBD. From Mt Eden Station it will take only three minutes to get to the uptown Karangahape Station, six minutes to the mid-town Aotea Station and nine minutes to the downtown Britomart Station.

• The CRL will extend the existing rail line underground through Britomart, to Albert, Vincent and Pitt Streets, and then cross beneath Karangahape Road and the Central Motorway Junction to Symonds Street before rising to join the western line at Eden Terrace where the Mount Eden Station is located. Mount Eden Station will be significantly re-developed.

• The C3 contract for the project’s main stations and tunnels contract was changed to incorporate longer platform tunnels at Karangahape Station to cater for nine-car trains (instead of six), a second Karangahape Station entrance at Beresford Square and additional station work at Britomart, Aotea and Mt Eden stations.

• Thanks to CRL, Britomart will no longer be a "dead end" station but a through station.

• The depth of the two new underground stations? Aotea Station will be 11m depth and Karangahape 33m.

• The CRL is jointly funded by the Government and Auckland Council.

• City Rail Link Ltd which came into being on 1 July 2017, has full governance, operational and financial responsibility for the CRL, with clear delivery targets and performance expectations.

• The project 's total cost was estimated at the time with a funding envelope of $3.4b. The revised cost envelope for completing the entire Auckland City Rail Link project now totals $4.419 billion. The revised cost has been endorsed by the project’s sponsors (the Crown and Auckland Council).

• A single Alliance is delivering the main CRL works - the stations and tunnels. The successful bidder was the Link Alliance (Vinci Construction Grands Projets S.A.S., Downer NZ Ltd, Soletanche Bachy International NZ Limited, WSP Opus (NZ) Limited, AECOM New Zealand Limited and Tonkin + Taylor Limited). City Rail Link and the Link Alliance negotiated a $75m Early Works Contract.

• Public transport use in Auckland is growing fast. In June 2019, it reached a milestone: Aucklanders had made 100 million public transport trips in the past year, making this the biggest year for buses, trains and ferries in the city since 1951. Everyday 270,000 trips are taken on public transport in Auckland. Auckland Transport figures show that Auckland train services totalled 22.0 million passenger boardings for the 12-months to February 2020, an increase of +5.4% on the previous year.

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